Like the title says, what's on your list, what did you just finish, what did you think of it???
Personally I'm finally almost done with Resisting the Virtual Life, a collection of essays from the mid 90s about the negative outcomes, that were already being realized, and that they foresaw on the horizon, of forcing computers into every aspect of our lives. It's been pretty good so far. A bit of anticommunism in one essay, but many of the others have been spot on, and the authors' perspectives have given me a lot to chew on as someone probably born after most of the essays were written. A good focus on how not inevitable "progress" is, and how political the decisions on how and where to use this technology is, as well as a robust smackdown of the "everyone will be highly educated highly skilled highly paid computer workers in the future" narrative that came along with the rollout of computerization and the internet. I'd really love to talk to someone about this book honestly.
The second to last essay I read was about repetitive stress injuries and other workplace harms arising from increasing computerization, and I was really curious if the authors fears turned out to be overblown or if we are still mostly just ignoring and downplaying those as a serious issue. The last one was a bit unsettling and started giving me Psychopolitics/Mark Fisher vibes with the descriptions of how the enmeshing of computers, education, and psychology would serve to shape our very ways of thinking.
If anyone wants to read it I'll try to scan it, though my copy has writing in the earlier essays from a previous owner.
Debt: The First 5,000 Years
"We all love our Graeber here on hexbear.com, don't we?" 
But seriously it's good
yea... I should read it. I recently read some criticism of it (not sure how well founded, but ostensibly from the left) but it sounds like even if it isn't perfect it would be good and highly engaging
Yeah I don't know enough to criticize it, but some stuff does feel a little glossed over.
Graeber's whole thing is a re-interpretation of existing anthropological evidence to fit the anarchist worldview. I think he's more successful than unsuccessful and presents a lot of genuinely intriguing points regardless of your political stance, but there are times where he plays a little fast and loose with the truth - or even just outright lies (there's a point in The Dawn of Everything where he quotes Hernan Cortez talking about an indigenous society in Central America(?), but only the first part of his statement where he's describing part of the society, to make it seem like they're leaderless and fully democratic - Graeber cuts off the quote before he reaches the rest of it where Cortez explicitly states they have leaders and shit).
I essentially subscribe to Matt Christman's point of view on all his books, which is, to paraphrase: "This is great stuff, awesome, you're telling me things that I've never heard before, early humanity is interesting in ways that I hadn't previously considered, I don't regret reading these books at all. You're trying to reconstruct a new paradigm out of the evidence, and you're not lying like the rest of the scholars do by pretending you're doing some "apolitical" interpretation of history, you're explicitly saying that you're trying to be political here, and that's very refreshing. My three problems are: a) why do you not mention key pieces of evidence; b) why are you so allergic to materialism when it could make your work even better; and c) even if I take all this as gospel... so what? Like, what do we do with this information? Spread it around and hope that enough people wake up en masse and realize that they could be doing something other than capitalism?"
It's such a shame that he died before he could finish up his grand project of creating essentially an anarchist Das Kapital, because I would have read the whole thing
That's a very interesting take on graeber, seems right from what I'm gathering. very cool
Other good works include:
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Graeber_David_Toward_an_Anthropological_Theory_of_Value.pdf or toward-anthropological-theory-value-false-coin-our-own-dreams-david-graeber
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The Dawn of Everything
Together with Debt they are the three most encompassing works in my opinion. Bullshit jobs, Utopia of Rules, Pirates etc. are all good but their points are a bit reduced compared to the three other books in my opinion.
Always happy to help. Also a Graeber fan, especially to contrast AnCom opinions Orthodox opinions and Graeber's points of views with each other.
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Rereading "Bullshit Jobs"
Teaching it so I'm interested what post covid students think
Perhaps I'll post an update in December after the term ends
Finally finishing dawn of everything
Also recently read The F*ggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions. Really great queer anarchist poetry / manifesto.
And of course, lefty newspapers like Itsgoingdown.org and Labornotes.org
Parenti's 'Inventing Reality.'
Also have Graeber's 'Dawn of Everything' that I'm hyped to start.
My thing with Inventing reality is that its 1) dated and 2) not really saying anything new to me. That said, it's really nice to see everything laid out. Papa Parenti don't miss, even if this isn't Blackshirts & Reds
I didn't finish inventing reality and felt similar. It was good but just really not news to me
Everyone is reading graeber rn it seems. I should soon
My thing with Inventing reality is that its 1) dated and 2) not really saying anything new to me. That said, it's really nice to see everything laid out. Papa Parenti don't miss, even if this isn't Blackshirts & Reds
That book is rendered obsolete by just observing how MSM covered Sanders and the George Floyd uprising.
Finishing the Introduction to The Philosophy of History by Hegel. I made a post with my brief thoughts lol.
Then I'm gonna read Brecht's poems which will be more enjoyable.
I'm also toying with the idea of reading surface detail by Banks, I have been spacing out the culture novels because there won't be anymore 😭
A People's History of The United States. It's very well written, but God damn if it isn't bleak.
Kitchen confidential, Anthony Bourdain is really enjoyable to read
Is weird when he talks about his time in the CIA but then I remember he means the Culinary Institute of America
I finished The Soviet System of Government by John N. Hazard last week. It was interesting between all the bias induced eye rolling.
Earlier this week I read Stephen King's If It Bleeds and then his new one Holly. Pretty standard King slop, post-Mr. Mercedes. Rather funny in that a conservative/lib leaning friend of mine was telling me how much they enjoyed Holly as a character and then a day later, aftet reading Holly, saying they didn't like the book. I cracked it open and it took place in 2021 at the height of the Delta variant. It was a depressingly amusing reminder of the half-assed ways liberals responded to covid and the vaccines. He has not asked me, someone who is still masking, what I thought of the book.
He has not asked me, someone who is still masking, what I thought of the book.
They never do. Don't want to be reminded of uncomfortable thoughts/facts
Holy shit nothing good this week. Like everything I picked up this week was either boring or just plain bad. Even the stuff I'd read and enjoyed before, I cringed at something on every page.
Which I suppose is a good thing in some ways. I'm not enjoying the stuff I used to, not because I've lost the passion, but because I'm able to recognize it's problematic. Here's to finding something better next week.
A little tangential but does anyone have any recommendations for short engaging fiction for someone whose attention span is fucked?
Accelerando by Stross. You can read each chapter like it's a short story. He introduces a new wild concept in like every paragraph. It's a fast book.
I Hear the Sunspot, a BL manga. It's about an introverted hearing impaired man and an extroverted man growing close, won't say more than that. But it's cute at times, emotional at others, and portrays disability really well. Haven't finished it yet but it's definitely my favourite BL if it keeps the same level of quality till the end, which I have no reason to doubt.
definitely my favourite BL if it keeps the same level of quality till the end
wow that's high praise from you, I gotta check it out
Idk why but this just reminded me I have a copy of Backlash (Faludi) on my shelf from ages ago when I was a baby leftist trying to get more informed. Still haven't read it but I probably should
The second book in the "Sprawl" series, Count Zero. The sequel to Neuromancer.
Its not great but its good slop, but the libgen ePub copy I'm reading is of very bad quality. I'd be going bonkers if I were trying to read something this poorly put together of non-fiction.
